An Unwanted Favour
1311 Words
The following morning arrived with the same relentless urgency that defined Alicia Eden's life.
She silenced her alarm before Daniel's voice reached her from the hallway.
"Samuel! Have you seen my case file?"
"It's not my fault you lose everything!" Samuel shouted back from the kitchen.
Alicia rubbed her eyes and sat up slowly.
For one brief moment she allowed herself to simply exist — no hospital bills, no overdue tuition, no Alexander Hayes, no announcement still ringing in her ears from three nights ago. Just the morning. Just the sunlight cutting through the curtain.
Then reality arrived, as it always did. Promptly and without apology.
She climbed out of bed and began getting ready for school.
Downstairs, the kitchen held the particular tension of people trying not to talk about the thing they were all thinking about.
Samuel sat at the table reviewing medical notes, a half-eaten piece of bread beside him. Daniel stood near the door adjusting his shirt cuffs with the mechanical efficiency of someone operating on three hours of sleep. Both looked older than they were. Both looked like men carrying weight their bodies hadn't yet learned to hide.
Their mother's illness was doing that. Quietly reshaping all of them.
"Morning," Alicia said softly.
"Morning," Samuel replied.
Daniel offered a tired smile.
"How's Mom?"
The question immediately changed the atmosphere. Alicia lowered her eyes.
"The doctors are still monitoring her."
Silence followed. The particular kind that existed when everyone was thinking the same thing and nobody wanted to say it first.
Mrs. Angel Eden wasn't getting better fast enough. And treatment wasn't getting cheaper.
From the living room came the sound of a newspaper turning.
Their father. In his usual chair. Untouched by everything happening around him.
Alicia's irritation flared and died quickly. She'd spent too much energy on it lately. She grabbed her bag instead.
"Bye."
No one stopped her. Everyone was already surviving.
School offered a few hours of temporary relief. By lunchtime Alicia sat beneath a tree on campus with Bella, Zoe, and Daniella, listening to Bella deliver what had become a recurring monologue about their pharmacology lecturer.
"I'm convinced he fails people recreationally," Bella declared.
Zoe nodded solemnly. "It's personal. It has to be."
Daniella pointed across at Alicia. "And yet Miss Perfect scored the highest. Again."
"That's because unlike you people, I actually read the material," Alicia said.
"Traitor," Bella said immediately.
Laughter. Easy, unguarded, the kind that existed only between people who genuinely liked each other.
For a few minutes Alicia felt like a regular university student. Not someone drowning. Not someone whose life had quietly become unrecognizable.
Then Jessica appeared across the courtyard. Eyes narrowed. Smile already forming.
Alicia turned away before their eyes could meet. She didn't have the energy today.
Across the city, Alexander Hayes stepped out of a private elevator and entered the top floor of Hayes Corporation. The atmosphere shifted the way it always did when he arrived — conversations lowered, postures straightened, attention sharpened without anyone being asked.
He had never asked for it. It simply happened. Had been happening since he was twenty-six and first walked into this building as its CEO.
Henry fell into step beside him immediately.
"Three meetings before noon. Singapore investor call at two. Legal team needs your signature on the merger documents."
"Send them through."
Henry hesitated.
Alexander noticed without looking up. "What?"
"The Chairman called again."
The office became quieter.
"What did he say?"
"He asked whether you'd contacted Miss Eden."
Alexander didn't answer immediately. He set his jacket across the back of his chair and moved toward the window. Fourteen floors below, the city moved in its usual organised chaos.
His grandfather rarely repeated himself. When the Chairman circled back to something, it meant he'd already made a decision and was simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.
That alone was more concerning than any direct instruction.
"That's all," Alexander said.
Henry nodded and left.
The door closed.
And Alexander stood alone with the city below him and Alicia Eden, inexplicably, still on his mind.
That afternoon, her phone buzzed during a break between lectures.
Alexander Hayes.
She stared at the name for a full five seconds before answering.
"Hello?"
"I need to see you."
Straight to the point. Of course.
"Good afternoon to you too," Alicia said.
A pause. Then — and this surprised her — "Good afternoon."
She almost laughed. Almost.
"What do you want?"
"Coffee. After your lectures."
She should have said no. She knew that. She knew it the way she knew most things she ignored — clearly, and then too late.
"Fine," she said. "One hour."
The café near campus was quiet at that time of afternoon, the kind of place that smelled like ground espresso and someone else's dissertation anxiety. Alexander was already seated when she arrived. Dark suit, composed expression, the particular stillness of a man who had never waited for anything in his life and had somehow learned to do it without it showing.
Alicia sat opposite him.
"What is it this time?"
"You assume I always want something."
"You do."
He considered that. Then: "Fair."
"I need you to attend an event."
"No."
"You haven't—"
"No."
Alexander studied her. The look of a man recalibrating.
"My family hosts a charity gala every year. It would require one evening."
"Still no."
"Alicia—"
"Alexander."
The use of his name stopped him. Most people didn't. Most people said Mr. Hayes, or sir, or nothing at all.
He almost smiled. She could see it — the faint movement at the corner of his mouth that he controlled almost immediately, the way someone disciplines a reflex.
"You enjoy making things difficult," he said.
"You enjoy creating problems for me."
"Fair," he said again.
Two concessions in one conversation. That had to be some kind of record.
The tension between them softened slightly. Not into warmth, exactly. Into something else — a cautious truce, the kind that forms between two people who've realized the other one isn't going anywhere.
Then he asked: "How is your mother?"
The question landed differently from how she expected. No agenda in it. No preamble. Just the question.
"She's still fighting," Alicia said carefully.
He nodded. Didn't offer sympathy or solutions. Just received the information the way one receives difficult weather — acknowledging it without pretending to control it.
She found herself appreciating that more than she wanted to.
"It's hard," she admitted. The words surprised her as she said them. She hadn't planned to say anything real.
Alexander looked at her. Really looked — not the way he assessed situations or monitored rooms, but the way someone looks when they are actually listening.
"I know," he said. Simply. Without fixing it.
Her phone rang. The hospital.
Her stomach dropped before she even answered.
The call lasted ninety seconds. When it ended, she placed the phone face-down on the table and stared at the surface of her untouched coffee.
"Alicia."
She looked up. Something in her face must have shifted because his expression had changed too — less composed, more present.
"It's fine," she said. "I'm fine."
He said nothing. Which meant he didn't believe her, and had the decency not to pretend he did.
She gathered her things and stood.
Alexander rose as well.
"You don't have to answer about the gala today," he said quietly. Then, after a pause: "But you don't have to carry all of this alone either."
Alicia stopped.
The words hit somewhere she hadn't expected. Low and certain, the way truth sometimes arrives — not loudly, but in a way that's impossible to ignore.
She didn't respond. She turned and walked out into the late afternoon, the city loud and indifferent around her.
But his words followed her home. And that, more than anything, was what unsettled her.
- Writer
